The terrified Actaeon bounded into the woods, but his own dogs detected the scent of a stag, and failing to recognize their master in his new body, chased him down and tore him to pieces. However, Briareus, who had been freed by Zeus from the prison Tartarus, overheard their conversation and realized that Zeus was tied. Thus he was tormented by everlasting hunger and thirst, despite food and water being so near. Tantalus was also the great grandfather of Menelaus, the Spartan king and cuckolded husband of Helen of Troy, and his brother Agamemnon, who commanded the Greeks in the Trojan War. He took the form of a bull to abduct and ravish the Phoenician princess, Europa. The only deity to touch the food was the goddess Demeter, who was distracted by the death of her daughter, Persephone, and absent-mindedly ate part of Pelops shoulder. He got on Zeus wrong side when he tricked him into accepting the bones and fat of sacrificial animals instead of their meat. Making it worse for those who gave in to Zeus, or were raped by him, was having to deal with his insanely jealous wife, Hera, and her crazy punishments not of her philandering husband, but of his victims. Hephaestus made a woman out of clay, a beautiful woman. The Romans identified the Greek goddess Hera with their own goddess of marriage, Juno. Leto was thus forced to keep wandering the earth, without a chance to settle down anywhere to give birth. To make his pettiness stick, the chief god prohibited anybody from letting humanity in on the secret of fire. Zeus realized he needed another approach. First, Hera kicked the pregnant Leto out of Mount Olympus, forcing her to wander the world amongst mortals. The trend of Hera being jealous and spiteful toward her husbands children continued throughout their reign. In the Iliad, Hera conspired to make Zeus sleep so the gods could be free of his command to stay out of the battles of men. According to Greek mythology, Lycurgus got drunk on wine and tried to rape his own mother. Tantalus was placed in a pool of water, beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Zeus may have loved most of his children . It's hard not to feel sympathetic to Zeus' wife, Hera. Greek culture commonly accepted, however, that men often cheated on their wives. Apollo was punished by Zeus for killing the serpentine, Python, who was the child of the Primordial God, Gaia. The four main domains of Hera include Women, Childbirth, Family, and most . The breach of Xenia left Ixion defiled, shunned by fellow Greeks and unfit to live amidst men. In the meantime, Lycurgus conducted an anti-Dionysian purge throughout his kingdom and carried out a persecution that saw the rounding up, arrest, and imprisonment of the Maenads and other followers of Dionysius. However, she committed the sin of hubris a mixture of extreme pride, dangerous overconfidence, and overweening arrogance. However, he ended up abusing that divine favor, committed a variety of offenses that angered the Olympians, and brought divine punishment upon himself. The king and queen of the gods were supposed to be the model of a perfect marriage, but the stories of Zeus and Hera show that their relationship was anything but divine! Hera, now even more jealous of Leto after she gave birth to Zeus children, sent a dragon to chase her and her newborns around. Chiron a mythical being with the lower body of a horse, and the torso and upper body of a human was notable in Greek legend for his youth-nurturing nature. That was when Sisyphus discovered he had been too clever by half, and too smart for his own good. Io was one of those unfortunate victims of Heras fits of jealousy. Hera, titled the Queen of Heaven, reigned from the gods' home atop Mount Olympus as the wife and sister and wife of Zeus, chief god of the Greek pantheon. In Greek myth, Leto was a Titan goddess whose beauty captivated Zeus, and she became his first and favorite lover. Even though she was the goddess of marriage, her own marriage was far from perfect. Io supposedly settled in Egypt and her descendants became the first kings there. Faithfulness. In only one story did Zeus punish Hera for her actions when she plotted to overthrow him. So the father-in-law seized some of Ixions valuable horses as security for the promised bride price. She attempted many times to cause his death or just make his life difficult, even driving him insane and forcing him to kill his own family. He became a king of the Lapiths tribe in Thessaly, in northern Greece, and from early on, he built up an infamous reputation as somebody who was mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Another of Tantalus children was Niobe, who got her own dose of divine punishment and earned an entry on this list see below. He had promised his father-in-law a valuable present as a bride price wealth paid by the groom to the parents of his bride but reneged and failed to pay up after the marriage. Omissions? He then courted Thetis, but abandoned the idea of marrying that Titaness when a similar prediction was made. This play shows many the archetypes in the characters in this play, like Zeus Prometheus, and Hephaestus. Yet Tantalus, his punishment, and his damned family also inspired many great works of Classical literature: His punishment has, ironically, ensured an enduring legacy. My father was Tantalus, who was received as a guest at the table of the gods; my mother was a goddess. OSU Classical Mythology 2220. Wedding plans were made, and Danaus arranged a feast for the event. Why did Zeus turn into a swan? She took great pride in both her birth and her looks, but what she took the greatest pride in was her large brood of fourteen children seven sons, and seven daughters. The Greek Goddesses shared in the oppression of ancient mortal women, and their example is important to the history of feminism. Exposed liars were made to dedicate a statue to Zeus, often at the sanctuary of Olympia. He was the husband of Dia, daughter of Deioneus, to whom he promised a gift as a bride price. Ixion, in Greek legend, son either of the god Ares or of Phlegyas, king of the Lapiths in Thessaly. Making it worse for those who gave in to Zeus, or were raped by him, was having to deal . Zeus however took pity on Ixion, and although promotion of Xenia was part of the chief Olympian gods portfolio, he cleansed him of the defilement, and invited him to Mount Olympus, to dine at the table of the gods. As you can see, Hera's jealousy and vengeful nature shaped many of the most popular stories in all of Greek mythology. Zeus and Hera were not each others first choice in partners. Zeus is known for being the lightning god, and the ruler of the gods. The gods threatened Sisyphus with dire punishment if he did not free Death, so he reluctantly did. It is from Tantalus punishment, of desperately wanting something that seems so close but that is just beyond reach, that we get the English word tantalize. They were to carry jugs of water to fill a bathtub to wash away their sins, but the bathtub could never be filled because it had a hole in the bottom. Zeus, the king of the gods of Mount Olympus, had many relationships but it was his sister, Hera, whom he wanted to rule by his side as his wife. Ixion, in Greek legend, son either of the god Ares or of Phlegyas, king of the Lapiths in Thessaly. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Pixabay. Those archetypes would be: ruler, creator, and rebel. The Ancient Greeks sometimes saw their gods as arbitrary and capricious, and few myths depict that conception of the Olympians arbitrariness and capriciousness as does the myth of Actaeon. Worshiped throughout the Roman Empire as the protector of Roman women and noble wife to Jupiter (the Roman equivalent to Zeus), Juno was oftentimes presented to be both militaristic and matronly. Prometheus however defied Zeus by stealing fire from Mount Olympus and smuggling it down to earth to share with mankind and help them survive lifes struggles. Ixion abused his pardon by trying to seduce Zeuss wife, Hera. One day, the people of Thebes went out to celebrate the feast of Latona a religious festival in honor of Leto, the mother of the gods Apollo and Artemis and as described in Bulfinchs Mythology: It was on occasion of the annual celebration in honor of Latona and her offspring, Apollo and Diana [i.e Artemis] when the people of Thebes were assembled, their brows crowned with laurel, bearing frankincense to the altars and paying their vows, that Niobe appeared among the crowd. Athena was born out of her fathers head and was generally described as not having a mother in any real sense. In the version of the myth told in Prometheus Bound she initially rejected Zeus' advances, until her father threw her out of his house on the advice of oracles. That championing of mankind got him in trouble with the gods, who devised a horrific punishment for him in consequence. She was all too aware of Zeus' past . He and his wife then ruled Argos, inaugurating a dynasty that ran that city for centuries. Demeter, a Story of a Mother's Triumph. While she was killed shortly before giving birth the child was resuced by Zeus. A lot of what we have read about him has given the impression that he has a few archetypes that describe him perfectly. The chief Olympian gods relentless pursuit, persistence, rough wooing, and refusal to take no for an answer was bad enough. Hera saw the poor bird and kindly brought him into the shelter of her bosom to warm and dry him. Niobe was left transfixed with grief and surrounded by the corpses of her offspring. Roman name: Juno. "One evening, while Zeus and Hera were dining, Zeus drank excessively of the nectar of the gods. His name, which means foresight, emphasizes his intellect, for he was known as a cunning trickster. Wherever I turn my eyes I survey the elements of my power; nor is my form and presence unworthy of a goddess. So they condemned Sisyphus to an eternity of rolling a huge boulder up a steep hill. Fortunately, Thetis helped Zeus by summoning Briareus to help free the God from his shackles. While they were said to have enjoyed a brief period of peace and happiness, this quickly gave way to conflict. First, Apollo sent Hercules to the hills of Nemea to kill a lion that was terrorizing the people of the region. Hera's weapon was not so straightforward. Thus, they represented the ideal for the nobles of Greece, who lived much different lives than the common people. The Nemean Lion. He first married the Titaness Metis, but turned her into a fly and swallowed her when he learned that her son would eventually overthrow him. As a punishment, Hera takes away Echo's voice so that she is only able to repeat whatever she hears. As the goat-legged Satyr, he seduced Antiope. He instilled in Actaeon a passion for hunting that would prove the Theban heros undoing. Hera banned her from giving birth on terra firma the mainland or any island under the sun. Although the extent of Actaeons sin, if it could even be called that, was to simply have had the misfortune of bumping into a naked goddess, Artemis was livid that a mortal saw her naked. In Greek mythology, Actaeon was a famous Theban hero, who loved to hunt in the outback of his native region of Boeotia. Having ordered the cutting down of all grapevines, the crazy king mistook his own son for a vine and chopped him to death with a sword, pruning away his ears, nose, fingers and toes. Zeus noticed Io, a mortal woman, and lusted after her. My name is Mike and for as long as I can remember (too long!) The people of Sparta claimed that Ares had been nursed by a nymph called Thero. According to most sources, Zeus did not originally intend to marry his sister, Hera. Why does Echo get punished? Greek Mythology in Comics: The Marriage of Zeus and Hera: The Punishment of the Lazy NymphArt: Kaji PatoScreenplay: Bruno Viriato #Comics #Mythology #SeeUinH. He murdered his father-in-law and could find no one to purify him until Zeus did so and admitted him as a guest to Olympus. She was a queen of Thebes, and was blessed with great fortune. From its towers, they watched the Theban youths engaged in sports below, while the Latona festival in honor of their mother was ignored. Danaus was the twin brother of the mythical king Aegyptus of Egypt, and the twins had some serious sibling rivalry going on. When Zeus looked down from the heavens and saw the dark of night dispelled by the flicker of fires, he grew livid. Hera made Argus, a giant with one hundred eyes, keep watch over Io. After crisscrossing the world for years while in labor, unable to find a resting place, Leto came across a barren island not connected to the ocean floor, so it did not count as a real island by Heras definition. First, Hera kicked the pregnant Leto out of Mount Olympus, forcing her to wander the world amongst mortals. The goddess Hera cursed her with just an echo for a voice as punishment for distracting her from the affairs of Zeus with her endless chatter.